On Plant Pathology and Bactlriology 103 



the interior of their pods were free from bacteria, that is, did not 

 contaminate culture-media wlien put into them.'' Tliese were 

 among the first experiments tending to establish the belief that 

 bacteria (excluding saprophytic bacteria) do not occur normally 

 in the interior of sound plants. Parasitic bacteria enter through 

 wounds or wilting of the plant. 



During the 1880's a "new botany," featuring in the science's 

 extended orbit laboratory research in "vegetable diseases" and 

 the physiology of plants, was gaining headway in the United 

 States and Canada. Since the 1870's Goodale and Farlow had 

 been teaching natural history, including "vegetable physiology,' 

 at Harvard: at the botanic garden as a part of the undergraduate 

 instruction, and in the Lawrence Scientific School. The require- 

 ments for laboratory practice applied to undergraduates and ad- 

 vanced students. The instruction, biological and histological, 

 traced from the lower to higher plant orders, and considered in 

 the lowTr orders not only fungi but also bacteria.'* The main 

 botanical laboratory had been established at the garden and Gray 

 Herbarium in 1872, and during the 1880's the laboratory for 

 cryptogamic botany became well equipped quarters in the Agassiz 

 Museum.'' In 1883,'*" with the equipping of a laboratory for 

 plant physiology in Harvard Hall replete with new and valuable 

 apparatus obtained with the advice of Sachs, Pfeffer, Pringsheim, 

 Wiesner, Frank, and others, an unexcelled laboratory center for 

 research as wtU as instruction was available to American students. 

 Plant research, the nation over, began to emphasize the compara- 

 tively new subjects of plant physiology and plant pathology\ 



Farlow's laboratory became more and more devoted to research 

 in mycology and algology, although the earlier interest in pathol- 

 ogy was by no means lost sight of. Goodale's laboratory was 

 rated among, if not, the best in the United States for its purpose. 

 He had visited the model laboratories of Europe, brought home 

 laboratory exercises and technical equipment, but at no time 



^•■' Erwin F. ?--:''li. Or. 'I:? suppo.^ed norm.-'I occurrence of bacteria in plants 

 Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases 2: 23, Carnegie Inst, of Washington, 1911. 



"'Ernst A. Bcssey, c/'. cit., 16; Botany at Harvard University, Botanical Gazette 

 8 (4): 205, 1883. 



"" J. C. Arthur, Some botanical laboratories of the United States, Botanical 

 Gazette 10 (12): 395-396, 1S85. 



^"Botanical Gazette 8 (4): 213, 1883. 



